Last year, the 4J school board adopted a new A/B/C alternating schedule with the C day being subject to the most teacher scrutiny. Teachers were not given much instruction on how to use the short time on Wednesday, C days, which has led to a need for experimentation about what works best in the limited class time the day offers.

“We know that we can’t do any new material,” English teacher Allison Dodd explained. “What else are we gonna do with a half an hour, or not, because it’s an awkward amount of time.”

Teachers are still working to boil down five days of material into two full days and a 30-minute period.

“I realized the first week that I had way overplanned the Wednesday,” French teacher Natalie Rush said. “30 minutes is actually pretty short by the time students settle down.”

Teachers stressed that a lack of time was the main downfall of Wednesdays. 

“It’s a short time period, it’s not a lot of time to get work done and it’s just overwhelming,” visual arts teacher Nina Herbst said. “Lunch is short, the classes are short and it’s just a lot of contact with students in a short amount of time.”

“We don’t go over any new materials on Wednesdays,” Dodd said, “so that makes our A days and B days all the more important for teaching and also for learning.”

Another common conclusion among teachers was that Wednesday was the most wasteful day compared to the alternating A/B days the rest of the week.

 “Despite wanting to see my students more often, I would actually prefer to have it where we do an A day and a B day,” Rush explained. “It could still be a shortened Wednesday, we could still have advisory, but that would give us maybe 45-minute classes versus 30 minutes.”

According to Herbst, teachers were told that Wednesdays are for affinity groups to meet, and not for new material to be introduced. 

For an affinity group leader like Dodd, Wednesdays provide a new opportunity for affinity groups to meet during their advisor’s prep period.

“Students are able to attend affinity groups which is really important,” Dodd said, who leads South’s GSA. “I love that, but it’s not meaningful instructional time.”

Teachers were still working to adapt their curriculum to the short time period and trying to find new ways to use the time. Wednesday is still subject to experimentation by teachers trying to figure out what kind of instruction or work can be completed in 30 minutes.

“I’m trying to be thoughtful about how I use my Wednesday, but still struggling to figure out what the best use of that time is,” Rush said. “When you have a set curriculum in College Now or for an AP or IB course, it becomes tricky. How do I get to everything before the exams in May?”

In the case of Herbst’s visual arts classes, initial experimentation on how to use C days didn’t work out.

“For the first week, I tried doing it as an enrichment activity to show students an artist that was relevant to whatever unit we were studying,” Hebst said. “But that just became overwhelming in terms of workload for me.”

For other teachers, they have found more effective ways to use a 30-minute period to further their student’s learning.

“Wednesdays are for book love time,” Dodd said. “Wednesdays are a great time to just go to the library to renew your book, to get a new book if you’d like and to really get a nice jumpstart on your personal reading.”

“I’ve tried different things,” Rush explained, including short quizzes, the speaking portion of a French test, some shorter assignments, and catch-up days.

Overall the opportunities offered by C days, according to teachers, are very limited by time. The district had different hopes for how they could be used, but teachers aren’t having an easy time adapting.

“Initially the idea when the schedule was proposed was to provide support and have opportunities to intervene when students are struggling,” Rush said. “That went away when the teachers started doing the math and realized how much learning time would be lost if you aren’t allowed to present new material on those days.” 

Teachers are still working to find the best use of the C day, to change something that can seem overwhelming at times into something that offers true educational value to their students.

Article by Julian White